About me

This blogname was derived from a satiric Arabic novel by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby. In the ''The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessoptimist'' he uses absurdism as a weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. I consider it to be an example for how events in Israel/{Palestine best can be approached.
The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. In a way that is also still my motto.
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. In 2018, I concluded the study 'Arabic language and culture' at the University of Amsterdam.
I started 'Abu Pessoptimist' in January 2009 out of anger about the onslaught of that month in Gaza. The other blog, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Egypt has reassured the
US that it will stop raids on the offices of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), the US state department says.Officials said property seized in the raids would be returned to the groups, which include two based in the US.Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has spoken to Egypt's military ruler by phone to discuss the issue, they added.
Egypt raided the offices of 17 NGOs in Cairo on Thursday, after expressing concern over foreign funding.The country's ruling military council has said repeatedly it will not tolerate foreign interference in the country's affairs. But the US reacted sharply to the move, condemning it as an
attack on democratic values and hinting that it could review the $1.3bn
(£0.84bn) in annual US military aid to Cairo if such incidents
continued.
In a press conference held at the premises of Egyptian Organization for
Human Rights (EOHR) on Thursday, 27 human rights organisations denounced
the raids, which were carried out on Thursday morning by officials from
Egypt’s public prosecution office, with back-up from police and military personnel.
The Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary ‎and the Legal
Profession (ACIJLP); the Budgetary and Human ‎Rights Observatory; and
the Washington-based National ‎Democratic Institute, the International
Republican Institute and ‎Freedom House were among the NGOs that the
government raided.
Head of Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Ahmed Saif Al-Islam, said that
Egyptian NGOs are now exposed to attacks unprecedented in their
magnitude at the hands of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF).Saif Al-Islam pointed out that restrictions on public freedoms had been
felt since the closure of Cairo’s Al-Jazeera Network office in
September, along with the renewal of emergency law in the same month.
Under the auspices of emergency law, freedom of expression is severely
curtailed, and journalists and TV interviewers risk facing questioning
or even prosecution.
Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the
Judiciary and the Legal Profession, challenged state authorities by
affirming that the center will continue with its work despite the
closure.
‘Even if we are jailed, we will work from inside the jail,’ Amin declared.
Hafez Abu Saeda, head of EOHR, described the crackdown as
“illegitimate” and expressed willingness to battle the raids through the
courts.At the press conference, Abu Saeda welcomed any of the 17 closed NGOs to use the EOHR premises to resume their work.

Syrian security
forces have killed
at least 12 protesters as hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the
government of President Bashar al-Assad, opposition activists said. Five members of the security
forces were also killed in a shooting in the city of Homs, the
British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.The presence of Arab League monitors in hotspots across Syria since Monday has given a new impulse to the protests. Demonstrators
wanting to show the scale of their movement to the monitors threw
rocks at security forces in the Damascus suburb of Douma, where troops
tear-gassed the chanting crowds.Five
people were shot dead in the city of Hama and five in the city of Deraa, the Observatory reported, adding that
at least two dozen people had been injured in Douma. In Idlib province security forces shot dead two people and wounded 37, according to the Observatory.

Activists in Idlib said the army had concealed its tanks in buildings on the outskirts or in dugouts.The
Arab League mission has met with strong scepticism from the outset over
its makeup, its lack of numbers - due to rise from 60 to 150 - and its
reliance on government transport. A
first assessment by its Sudanese head that the situation was
"reassuring" prompted disbelief in the West Wednesday, but Friday
Syria's ally Russia accepted the judgement.The United Nations said it was critical that the team's "independence and impartiality be fully preserved." Spokesman
Martin Nesirky urged the Arab League to "take all steps possible to
ensure that its observer mission will be able to fulfil its mandate in
accordance with international human rights law standards." He said the
United Nations was willing to give the League observers training on
human rights monitoring.The
commander of the anti-government Free Syrian Army told Reuters he had
ordered his fighters to stop offensive operations while the FSA tried to
arrange a meeting with the monitors."All
operations against the regime are to be stopped except in a situation
of self defense," Colonel Riad al-Asaad said.The FSA, formed by
thousands of defectors from Assad's army and financed by expatriate
Syrians, has taken the offensive in the past three months, taking the
fight to the state rather than simply trying to defend opposition
strongholds.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Turkish warplanes
killed 30 people in an air strike in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi
border overnight, apparently mistaking smugglers for Kurdish militants,
a local official told Reuters on Thursday.Turkish warplanes strike
militant targets regularly in the region in their battle against
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, and have stepped up raids
after a PKK attack in August."We
have 30 corpses, all of them are burned. The state knew that these
people were smuggling in the region. This kind of incident is
unacceptable. They were hit from the air," said Fehmi Yaman, mayor of
Uludere in Sirnak province.The Turkish government was not immediately available for comment."There
were rumors that the PKK would cross through this region. Images were
recorded of a crowd crossing last night, hence an operation was carried
out," a security official said."We could not have known whether these people were (PKK) group members or smugglers," he said.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Syrian army tanks
were seen pulling out of Homs on Tuesday as a team of Arab League peace
monitors headed for a first look at the protest hotbed city where 34
people were reported killed in the previous 24 hours.The British-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights cited reports from opposition activists in
Homs saying at least 11 tanks had left a district they attacked on
Monday, and that other tanks were being hidden.Opponents
of President Bashar al-Assad say districts of Syria's third biggest
city have been hammered by government troops and tanks in recent days,
with the Baba Amr neighborhood taking a pounding from tank fire, mortars
and heavy machineguns.

The arrival of the observers and 10 Arab League officials came as
activists reported the deaths of at least 45 people around the country
on Monday (34 of them in Homs).
An advance team of monitors arrived in Damascus on Thursday to lay
the groundwork for the observer mission to oversee the implementation of
the peace plan.
Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition Syrian National Council
(SNC), said some of the observers were in Homs "but they are saying they
cannot go where the authorities do not want them to go".

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The participants of the 'March of Life' from Taiz to San'a on their way (AFP)

At least 13 anti government marchers were killed on Saturday during the “March of Life”.
Protesters were attacked in the outskirts of Sana’a, near Dar Salm district.
Eyewitnesses told the Yemen Postthat pro government gunmen were on rooftops and shot directly at protesters. Among the 13 killed, seven were shot in the head.
Medical staff in change square Sana’a told the Yemen Post that the total
number of injuries exceed 200 while claiming that many of the injured
were not reported to the camp due to the far distance between the attack
area and the camp.
The attackers of the march of about 100.000 were forces under the command of relatives of president Ali Abdallah Saleh.
The march started five days earlier in the city of Taiz as an impressive means to convey the message to the international community that the participants refused the immunity that was granted to president Saleh and his relatives in the Gulf peace initiative for Yemen. The participants walked 250 kilometers passing cities in the governorates of Ibb, Dhamar and Sana'a. On the way they were joined by many. The march was heading to Sana'a Altaghyeer Square ('Change Square') at the center of Sana'a
city where it was going to join the youth protesters who camp there since several months.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

And as yet a Happy Chanukka to my Jewish readers! (The picture is of an Arab house in the Sheikh Jarrah-area in Jerusalem that was taken over by Jews in 2008 - they immedately placed a gigantic chanukkiah (Chanukka chandelier) on the roof).

Arab League monitors met Syria's foreign minister on Saturday, a day
after suicide bombers killed 44 people in attacks Damascus blamed on
al-Qaeda, but which the opposition said were the government's work.
Thousands of people in the Syrian capital took part in funerals, and
mourners carried coffins draped in Syrian flags into the eighth-century
Omayyad mosque.The funerals turned into pro-government rallies, with Syrians
chanting "Death to America" during the processions in Damascus, the
Reuters news agency reported.
The bombings, which hit two security buildings on Friday, were the
first against the powerful security services in the heart of the capital
since an uprising against Assad began in March.
An Arab League delegation met Walid Muallem, the Syrian foreign
minister, on Saturday to discuss the arrival of a team to oversee a deal
aimed at ending nine months of bloodshed.
Residents in the Syrian city of Homs told Al Jazeera on Saturday that army tanks were shelling
the city. Activists in the Bab Amr district said they had been under
seige for the last 48 hours. "There is heavy bombardments going on since early morning and there
is non stop firing so far," a resident of Bab Amr told Al Jazeera on
Saturday. "So many people are been killed, we have counted so far 16 people
have been killed and we've got so many injured, so many houses have been
destroyed and we don't know what to do. Everywhere from every side we
can see tanks very clearly and different types of heavy machine guns
have been used since morning."
Meanwhile, the bodies of four civilians who had been arrested were
found on Saturday with signs of torture in restive Homs province,
activists said. They also said at least 21 civilians were killed across
the country on Friday.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square Friday for a
rally dubbed "Friday of Reclaiming Honor" to protest against military
and police forces' assaults on demonstrators over the past week. Marches around Cairo — including from Mostafa Mahmoud mosque in
Mohandiseen and Esteqama mosque in Giza— arrived at the symbolic square
to demonstrate anger with clashes that broke out on 16 December and in which at least 17 were killed and hundreds injured. The privately owned OnTV channel reported that a women's march from Abdel Moneim Riyad Street also joined the protest.Protesters could be heard chanting, "The people are the red line; down with military rule."

Palestinian factions, including Hamas, are "on the path joining" the
Palestine Liberation Organisation, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said Thursday following unity talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas."This is a new departure on the path to joining the PLO of all
Palestinian movements", Meshaal said following the talks in the Egyptian
capital.
The Egyptian intelligence chief
Murad Muwafi and Palestinian independents also took part in the talks.
Independent MP Mustafa Barghouti (The Palestinian National Initiative, PNI) said the participation of
unaffiliated delegates such as himself and businessman Munib al-Masri
alongside representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad was "a historic
event. It is the first time there is a unified leadership for all political and intellectual streams," he told AFP.
Thursday's meeting of the so-called provisional leadership, which was
chaired by Abbas, included the leaders of all the Palestinian factions
and members of the PLO Executive Committee.`It was the first time the provisional leadership body had met since
it was formed in 2005 with the aim of providing a forum for debating
reform of the PLO and allowing for the participation of factions such as
Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
This meeting was "the first concrete application of the Cairo
agreement, of the reconciliation and of the partnership between all the
political forces," Fatah delegation head Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP earlier
on Thursday. The aim of the three-day meeting was to "focus on the restructuring
of the PLO leadership and of the PNC," he said, referring to the PLO's
parliament-in-exile which has more than 650 members on its books but
which has not met in full session for 15 years. He said the provisional leadership body would meet again in Cairo on February 2.
Earlier Thursday, Abbas signed off on the creation of a separate
nine-member panel to chart a path forward for Palestinian presidential
and legislative elections. Hamas said in a statement that the groups had decided to create an
electoral commission, including members of every Palestinian faction,
tasked with managing elections within the PLO. The commison wil be led by the speaker of the Palestinian National
Council (PNC), Selim Zaanoun, and will meet in Jordan's capital next
month. "A law concerning elections to the PLO was given to the participants
for them to study and each movement is to give its response for January
15 so that it can be discusssed at the first meeting of the commission",
the statement added.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

that the public prosecutor’s
office has challenged statements made earlier this week by Egypt’s
ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in which the council
claimed that military personnel were simply “defending themselves”
during violent clashes in October in Cairo’s Maspero
district and late last month on Mohamed Mahmoud Street.

General Emara

At a press conference
earlier this week, SCAF member Major-General Adel Emara stated that both
incidents were being investigated by public prosecutors.

Al Ahram Online reports that iIn a statement issued
Wednesday, the public prosecutor’s office announced that it had wrapped
up investigations of both incidents and had referred them to magistrates
who would announce results of their own investigations to the public
prosecutor’s office. Magistrates answer to Egypt’s justice ministry and
not to the public prosecutor’s office.

Meanwhile lawyer Tarek El-Awadi, head of the Law State Support Centre,
revealed that four minors who appeared in video clips shown at the
SCAF’s recent press conference had been arrested from their homes on 14
December – two days before clashes began between anti-government
protesters and security forces outside Egypt’s Cabinet building. The SCAF had earlier
screened footage from Egyptian television of street children allegedly
arrested during the clashes. In the footage, the boys confessed to
having been paid to set buildings on fire and make Molotov cocktails.

Update Friday: Two more blasts went off Thursday evening. The death toll now stands at 69 people killed. More than 200 are wounded.

A wave of bombings
ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 57 people
and injuring nearly 200 in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months. The death toll is likely to rise.
The bloodbath comes just days after American forces left the country.The
blasts also came on the heels of a political crisis between Iraq's
Sunni and Shiite factions that erupted this weekend, after a arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president Tareq al-Hashemi was handed down. .

Iraqi officials
said at least 14 blasts went off early Thursday morning in 11
neighborhoods around the city. The explosions ranged from blasts from
sticky bombs attached to cars to roadside bombs and vehicles packed with
explosives. There was at least one suicide bombing among the attacks.

Most of the attacks appeared to hit Shiite neighborhoods although some Sunni areas were also targeted.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The death toll
from an attack by Syrian forces in the northern province of Idlib on
Tuesday has risen to at least 56, the opposition Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said Wednesday.The British-based group said it
had documented the names of 56 "citizens and wanted activists" who were
killed, but that dozens more may have died. The Observatory's Rami
Abdulrahman said one activist in the area reported 121 bodies had been
taken to local hospitals.
One blog of a Syrian in the USgives a toll of no less than 182. His Breakdown:
150 fell in Jabal Al-Zawiyeh region of the Idlib Province, 100
were said to be defectors, while the remaining 50 were civilians, 36
of whom fell in the village of Kafar Ouayd, including a local Imam whose body
was mutilated post-mortem. Most defectors also fell in the areas between Kafar
Ouayd and Fateerah.
A further 6 were killed in the Dera'a province, 12 in Homs, and 14 loyalists got killed in Dera''a in retaliatiom for the killing og 100 defectors in Idlib on Monday.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Egypt continues to amaze. After five days of violence by the army, all of a sudden there appears thess women, marching unto Tahrir, strongly protesting the violence and demanding that the army relinquishes power.

Violent clashes between protesters and joint forces from the Egyptian
Army and police re-erupted in Tahrir Square at the crack of dawn
Tuesday, with four deaths reported. Security forces tried and failed to evacuate Tahrir.At some point, the security forces managed to force protesters back towards the Egyptian Museum. Eventually, however, the soldiers regrouped at their position behind
the concrete wall erected across El-Sheikh Rihan Street, which leads to
the Ministry of Interior.
Yamen El Genedy, a doctor at the Omar Makram Mosque field hospital,
told Ahram Online that he saw four people admitted at 8 this morning.
All of them had been shot dead. "The bullets had entered and exited
their bodies, making it seem like the result of snipers. The force of
the gunshots was very strong," said El Genedy. One of the deaths, he
added, was a 19-year-old.Another field hospital doctor, Ahmed Saad, told AP that a 15-year-old
protester was in critical condition after suffering a gunshot wound in
the attack. No deaths have been officially reported.The Ministry of Health announced that 32 people were injured in the
recent violence, four of whom were hospitalised. Ambulances, on standby
throughout near the square, ferried the injured to nearby hospitals.

Another picture of the march of the women. These ones carry the by now notorious picture of the young woman who was beaten, kicked and almost undressed by the military.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Update: More than 100 people have been killed in Syria,
rights activists said, as the Arab League announced an advance party
would be sent to the country this week to pave the way for monitors who
will try to help end nine months of violence. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on
Monday that more than 60 army deserters had been shot dead by machinegun
fire as they tried to flee their base, citing accounts from wounded
survivors. It also counted 40 civilians shot dead across Syria in the
crackdown on protests. (End of update)

Syria signed an Arab League initiative Monday that will allow Arab
observers into the country, Syria's final
acceptance of it was a response to mounting international pressure.
Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem told reporters in Damascus that the observers will have a one-month mandate that can be
extended by another month if both sides agree. They will be
"free" in their movements and "under the protection of the Syrian
government," he said, but will not be allowed to visit sensitive
military sites.

Walid al Muallem

Last month Syria agreed to an Arab League plan to end the crisis. It
called for removing Syrian forces and heavy weapons from city streets,
starting talks with opposition leaders and allowing human rights workers
and journalists into the country, along with Arab League observers.
Despite its agreement, Syria then posed conditions that made
implementation impossible.

As the agreement was signed, security forces shot and killed at least
three people in the southern province of Daraa and a demonstration in
Damascus' central neighborhood of Midan, where a child was wounded,
according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Three soldiers were also killed in a clash between troops and army
defectors in the northern town of Maaret al-Numan, the observatory said.
Another activist group said Monday's death toll throughout Syria was 14.

The Arab League had given Syria until Wednesday to sign the
agreement, warning that if Damascus did not, the League would likely
turn to the UN Security Council for action to try to end the President
Bashar Assad's crackdown on the uprising.

Many regime opponents have in the past accused Assad of waffling on
the deal as a way to gain time as he continues his crackdown. They
expressed skepticism that the regime will cooperate even after signing
the initiative.

This picture of soldiers beating and dragging this nwoman whose blue bra and belly have been exposed, has already become an icon of the way SCAF deals with its fellow Egyptians. Egypftian novelist Ahdaf Soueif wrote a beautiful piece about it in The Guardian.

Two versions have emerged of what has been happening these last days to the sit-in in front of the Cabinet building and on and around Tahrir Square in Cairo. One version was spread by the state media, the government and SCAF itself. It began with Prime Minister Kammal al-Ganzouri who on Saturday during a press conference denied that that the army used violence or live amunnition and

called what was “happening not a revolution, but [rather] an assault on the
revolution”.

Next was the state media that described the protesters in the street as thugs, street kids, drug addicts and forces from outside Egypt. State television even broadcasted interviews with people who said that they were
protesters who had been paid by liberal groups to attack the military. It was, as the New York Times wrote, an echo of the propaganda from the last days of the Mubarak government.

After that SCAF repeated this story. There was the hair rising remark, by General Abdel Moneim
Kato, an adviser to the military's Morale Affairs Department, who talked to the private newspaper Al-Shorouk about the events and the violence used by the army. People had better worry about the country's welfare, he said, in stead of being concerned about "some street bully who deserves to be thrown into
Hitler's ovens".

Kato's remarks were condemned by many. But on Monday afternoon a civilized version of what he said was presented during a press conference of General Adel Emara, one of the SCAF-leaders 'The armed forces,' Emara said, 'does not use violence
systematically. We exercise a level of self-restraint that
others envy. We do not do that out of weakness but out of concern for
national interests.”

General Emara

As reported by Al-Masry al-Youm of which the English section recently has been renamed Egypt Independent), the general said that violence erupted on Friday
when demonstrators who had been holding a sit-in in outside the
cabinet’s headquarters for the last three weeks attacked a military
officer. Military personnel guarding the cabinet’s building came to the
officer’s rescue, but they were subjected to “deliberate humiliation and
provocation,” continued Emara, who affirmed later that the armed forces
had no intention of dispersing the protest.

According to activists and eyewitnesses, however, the version of what happened during the past few days is completely the other way round. Military
personnel picked a fight with protesters with the intention of
dispersing the sit-in, whose main demands were the firing of the newly
appointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri and the transfer of power
from the military to civilians.

The military started to throw stones and office furniture at protesters from the roofs of nearby buildings. Soldiers in military
uniforms were even photographed urinating on protesters from the rooftops.
In the meantime, gunshots were heard. The next day more ugly scenes emerged of soldiers beating up
demonstrators with sticks and dragging a woman through the street,
stripping her naked and kicking her. Also 14 protesters died so far, most of them by gunshots

Emara didn't challenge the authenticity of photos
and videos showing the woman, which have gone viral in cyberspace and
in the foreign media.Yet he argued that the footage didn't prove that the military had resorted to excessive violence.“I say yes, this scene actually happened and we
are investigating it,' bu he added that the
circumstances should be taking into account as well.

As Al Masry al-Youm/Egypt Independent wrote: The weekend’s violence brought back memories of
earlier military brutality, including an attack on a Coptic-led protest
in October and the dispersal of an anti-military rally in November. In
the first incident, the military was held responsible for the killing of
27 people; in the second, both the armed forces and the police were
blamed for the murder of at least 40.

On both occasions, the military and the
state-owned media invoked conspiracy theories, using the common refrain
that “hidden” hands were fomenting chaos to ruin the state and thwart
the transition to democracy.

On two sides walls built by the army of concrete blocs and in the middle the burnt out building of the Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Research. (Picture M Shestawy)

The problem with the two versions, however, is that many ordinary Egyptians - indeed most Egyptians - tend to believe the version of the state media and the SCAF, in which the protesters are depicted as criminals and thugs, influenced by foreigners, who try to undermine the government and the army and in the process destroy Egyptian property.
That in itself is bad enough, as it clearly has the effect that the pro-revolution forces are marginalised. But it us not even the whole story. Al-Ahram Online reports that in the recent military raid on Tahrir Square, media personnel and
cameras became a primary target. Men in military uniform, assisted by
plainclothes men, confiscated cameras and smashed them.
Reporters and filmmakers on rooftops surrounding the square were not
excluded from the attacks, Al-Ahram Online reports. Al-Jazeera English producer Adam Makary told
the paper that 20 plain-clothed men stormed his hotel overlooking the
square and smashed any camera they found.
Makary saw the men severely beating a French reporter and a female
member of staff at the hotel, after which he hid in a closet and heard
more people being beaten and equipment being smashed. According to
Makary, the plain-clothed men who attacked the hotel – whilst protesters
were being evicted from Tahrir – were “instructing each other and
everything seemed very orchestrated.”
Filmmaker Cressida Trew, who was filming from a friend’s flat
overlooking the square, was visited by a military officer, assisted by three
others, who confiscated her cameras. According to Trew, she tried to
negotiate with the officer to take her memory card and leave the camera
but her proposal was refused. Two more media personnel accompanying Trew
also had their cameras taken in addition to all their lenses.
This was not the first time the media had been targeted since military
took power. Makary explained that this was the third time he had been
attacked while doing his job. It had happened twice before in
Alexandria.
Masry Al-Youm photographer Ahmed Abd El-Fattah lost his eye while
covering clashes near the Ministry of Interior in Mohamed Mahmoud Street
where 40 people were killed and over a thousand injured. Abd El-Fattah said police officers shot at his eyes. Although activists
have also lost their eyes and even their lives, Abd El-Fattah said his
injury was no coincidence as media were being targeted. “Five Masry
Al-Youm reporters, in addition to ten working for other media
institutions, were injured that day and they all had cameras,” he said.
Moreover, Abd El-Fattah said media personnel often suffered accusations
of spying while on the job. “People are affected by the military’s
media and the military also has secret agents all around to stir such
accusations,” he said.

Hundreds of Egyptian
soldiers in riot gear swept through Cairo's Tahrir Square early Monday
and opened fire on protesters demanding an immediate end to military
rule. The Health Ministry said at least three people were killed,
bringing the death toll for four days of clashes to 14.

Violence
has been raging in Cairo since Friday, when military forces guarding
the Cabinet building near Tahrir Square heavily cracked down on a
3-week-old sit-in to demand Egypt's ruling generals immediately hand
power to a civilian authority.

The raid early
Monday may have been an attempt by the military to keep protesters away
from key government buildings near the square, including parliament and
the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the hated police force.

Ahmed
Saad, a field hospital doctor who witnessed the crackdown, said six
people were killed by gunshots, giving a toll twice that of the Health
Ministry's. He said troops stormed a mosque on the square, beating up
protesters who spent the night inside.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Fire consumes the Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Research in Cairo. The Institute, next to the Cabinet building, went completely up in flames. Many valuable books and manuscripts got lost. Among them the manuscript of 'Le désciption de l'Egypte' from the time of Napoleon's expedition.

Protesters and
security forces fought in Cairo on Sunday, the third day of clashes that
have killed 10 people, while 505 people were wounded (of whom 384 had been taken to hospitals). An army source said 164 peoplehad been detained.There were no people, killed on Sunday.

Soldiers and police manned
barriers on streets around Tahrir Square, with police (Central Security forces) appeared to have
taken over the front line from soldiers.Clashes continued mainly on Qasr El-Aini Street
and Sheikh Rihan Street.

Several people tried to mediate a cease fire. The group included recently-elected members of parliament Amr Hamzawy and Mustafa El-Naggar, and prominent activist Wael Ghoneim. Other members of the delegation were parliamentary candidates Ziad Eleimy and Ziad Bahaa El-Din; political analyst and former advisory council
member Moatez Abdel Fatah; filmmaker/activist Mohamed Diab; and Muslim
preacher Moaz Masoud.According to El-Naggar, the delegation had approached the army and
interior ministry in hopes of discussing a proposed ceasefire.

A
building nearTahrir with historic archives, was gutted on Saturday by a
fire. The Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Research was completely destroyed. The institute contained some 196.000 books, among them many irreplaceable manuscript of rare editions. Some 30.000 volumes were saved by protesters who helped to save as much as possible.Among the manuscript that got lost was the original of Le description de l'Egypte, the compilation of descriptions, engravings and maps by the group of scientists who were brought in by Napoleon when he invaded Egypt in the beginning of the 19th century (1798-1801) and started its modernisation.

(Updated) On Saturday 17 December, it was exactly one year ago that Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, a fruit seller from Sidid Bouzid in Tunisia, set fire to himself. He
thereby started the uprisings in the Arab world that people later on
started to refer to as 'The Arab Spring' (Tunisians prefer the name Ýasmine Revolution'). It seemed a good moment to honor
this man who gave the sign for revolutions in several
countries of the Arab world, not least his own, where recently the first elected parliament, president and government were installed.
In Bouazizi's city Sidi Bouzid festivities were held that lasted the whole weekend, with the paticipation of several pesonalities like Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karmon from Yemen. The newly elected president Moncef Marzouki unveiled a monument for Mohamed Bouazizi, representing his fruit cart.

The new - unfortunately rather ugly - monument for Mohammed Bouazizi. (AFP).

"Sidi Bouzid, that suffered from being marginalised, has the Tunisians given back their dignity,'' president Marzouki said in his speech. ''Now we have taken it upon ourselves to return to these regions their 'joie de vivre'. The president was referring to the economical situation, which has become worse after the revolution, as it has chased away tourists and investors.The past weeks there has been unrest in several places, among them Sidi Bouzid itself, because of the unemployment rate, which, according to the Tunisian Central bank, has gone up since the revolution from 13% to 18,3%.

Three times Mohammed Bouazizi. Left: setting fire to himself, top right: in the hospital, where he was visited by Ben Ali, who was still president at the time, and where he later died. Below right: one of the few portraits that are known of him.

Upon looking back on my blog, I dicoverd that I did not pick up the news right from the beginning. My first report about the uprising in Sidi Bouzid - almost entirely based on what was reported by Tunisian bloggers - was on 25 December (which was still some three weeks earlier than the bulk of the 'official' media, though). Below the first picture of the protests in Sidi Bouzid itself
that I put on this blog. By then the unrest was already spreading to the rst of Tunisia. One of the impressive events of these first weeks was the country wide protest of the lawyers at the end of December. One of the videos of the event - singing lawyers in Sfax - which I put on my blog, is resposted below.

The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq
on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500
American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country
grappling with political uncertainty.They leave behind some 17.000 American personnel and some 200 troops attached to the American embassy in Baghdad.

The final column of around 100 mostly U.S. military MRAP armored vehicles carrying 500 U.S. troops
trundled across the southern Iraq desert from their last base through
the night and daybreak along an empty highway to the Kuwaiti border.

For President Barack Obama
the military pullout is the fulfillment of an election promise to bring
troops home from a conflict inherited from his predecessor, the most
unpopular war since Vietnam and one that tainted America's standing
worldwide. For Iraqis, though,
the U.S. departure brings a sense of sovereignty tempered by nagging
fears their country may slide once again into the kind of sectarian
violence that killed many thousands of people at its peak in 2006-2007.

Iraq's political uncertainty was underscored when late on Saturday an arrest warrant was issued against the Iraqi Vice
President Tariq al-Hashimi for being the mastermind behind
the recent bombing targeting the parliament.The car bombing which took place on November 28, was an attempt to assassinate one of the members of the parliament.

Tareq al-Hashimi

According to the Iraqi government, evidence pointed at al-Hashimi’s
embroilment after deriving confessions from four arrested Islamic Party members. An official from the interior
ministry announced earlier Saturday that they
will show confessions indicating the involvement of a higher rank
official in terrorist activities.

Hashimi was the head of the Islamic Party, a political party
representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq, in 2004, but in 2009
he announced that he is no longer a member of the party. Instead, he created the Tajdeed movement, which is considered to be one
of the political parties component of the secular Iraqiya block. The allegations against Hashimi came hours after the Iraqiya
bloc which won most of the votes of Iraq’s Sunni Arab
minority, walked out of parliament.
The bloc, led by former premier Iyad Allawi, said it was suspending its
participation in parliamentary business in protest at what it charged
was Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s monopolization of all
decision-making.
“We can no longer remain silent about the way the state is being
administered, as it is plunging the country into the unknown,” said the
bloc, which holds 82 of the 325 seats in parliament, second only to
Maliki’s National Alliance.
The bloc accused the Maliki government of “placing tanks and armored
cars in front of the homes of Iraqiya leaders in the Green Zone,” the
heavily fortified central Baghdad district that houses the official
residences of leading politicians and government ministers as well as
the British and U.S. embassies.
A spokesman from Iraqiya said that the allegations against
Hashimi is an attempt by the Maliki to create a one-party system, thwart
opposition and to gradually target and defile national Iraqi figures.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Cairo witnessed another day of violence on Saturday. From the above video it is crystal clear what kind of violence the brave Egyptian soldiers applied to the protesters. It's just unbelievable. Watch, and you'll know that there's no need for further comment.
At least nine people have been confirmed killed and more than 344 reported injured in the past two days. A building belonging to the Ministry of Transport that caught fire
during the clashes continued to burn as military police launched a
fierce attack on Tahrir Square. Tents in the square’s central
island and near the Mugamaa state complex were burnt down and
demonstrators were severely beaten.
Abou El-Ela Madi, head of Al-Wasat Party and a member of the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) Advisory Council resigned from the
council in protest over the army’s crackdown on the Cabinet sit-in.

Sheikh Emad Effat

Saturday two funerals were taking place. One of Sheikh Emad Effat, a member of the Dar Al-Ifta, the section of al-Azhar that is responsible for issuing fatwa's, who was shot in the chest during the military’s attack on the
Cabinet sit-in. He was commemorated in a funeral that started at Al-Azhar
Mosque and marched to the Sayeda Aisha cemeteries.
Elsewhere students from Ain Shams University attempted to march to
the ministry of defence to protest the loss of their lost colleague,
medical student Alaa Abd El-Hady, who was also shot dead during the
military’s attack on the Cabinet sit-in, but were prevented from doing
so by the military police. Both marches chanted against the SCAF and against the head of the
military council Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.
Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri held a press conference Saturday
denying that violence was used against demonstrators, adding that the
military did not use live ammunition to disperse protesters. Also that is just unbelievable. People die from gunshot wounds, there are even video's to confirm that, and the prime minister says that no live ammunition has been used.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated Friday across the country
rejecting an amnesty given to President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a deal that eases him out of office. "A trial is a must and amnesty is rejected," chanted demonstrators in
Sanaa's Sitin Street, close to Change Square—the focal point of protests
that broke out in January demanding Saleh's departure after 33 years in
power.
Similar demonstrations were staged in 18 cities and towns across Yemen
in response to a call by the central organising committee of protests,
as protesters insisted Saleh and his top lieutenants should face justice
over the killing of demonstrators.
Last month, Saleh signed a Gulf-brokered deal aimed to end the
political crisis in the impoverished country. Under the deal, he handed
authority to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, and the opposition
formed a national unity government.
Saleh serves now as an honorary president until polls are held in February to elect his successor.

While others throw stones from the roof of the Parliament building, a soldier pisses on the protesters. Literally. (Photo Mostafa Sheshtawi)

Updated Saturday: The Egyptian Health ministry on Saturday morning reported that eight people died and 300 were injured Friday during the clashes between the military and the people that manned the sit-in in front of the government offices at Qasr al-Einy Street in Cairo. Among the dead were a member of the 6 April Youth Movement, Ahmed Mansour, and Sheik Emad Effat, a cleric of Al-Azhar. Both had been shot.
The fight between troops and demonstrators was the worst violence since Egypt began its elections.They broke out on Thursday night and seems to have been triggered by the fact that the people of the sit inwere playing a game of football and a ball went through a window inside the building of the Parliament. One of the players went inside the building to retrieve the ball and was reportedly beaten. After that a fight broke out during which military police burned the tents of the protesters and pelted them with stones, broken china and trash from the rooftop of the Parliament building. Later on some thousands took part in a protest march in a nearby street. The crowd was met with teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. By
early afternoon, ambulance sirens were wailing as troops tried to
disperse around 10,000 protesters with truncheons and what witnesses
said appeared to be electric cattle prods.

Clashes
raged on after nightfall. On Saturday a new round of fighting started with troops and protesters pelting each other with stones. The army had sealed off the area around the government buildings in the meantime and driven the protesters back in the direction of Tahrir Square . Th sit-in was a left-over from the protests against the appointment of Kamal al-Ganzoury, a former Prime Minister from the Mubarak-era, at the head of a new government. The protesters from then on blocked his ministerial office.
The ruling military council, in a statement read on state television, denied troops had tried to disperse the sit-in. It
also denied troops had used fire-arms and said the violence started
when one of the officers maintaining security outside parliament was
attacked while on duty. The public prosecutor would investigate that
incident, the council said.
According to the protesters these were all plain lies. And a new
civilian advisory council that was set up to offer guidance to the army
generals on policy said it would resign if its recommendations on how to
solve the crisis were not heeded. Presidential
candidate Amr Moussa, who is a member of the civilian council, told an
Egyptian satellite television station, the council had suspended its
meetings until the military council meets its demands that include an
end to all violence against demonstrators.Reports
of beatings of well-known pro-democracy activists buzzed across social
media and politicians from Islamists to liberals lined up to condemn the
army's tactics."Even if the
sit-in was not legal, should it be dispersed with such brutality and
barbarity?" asked Mohamed ElBaradei, a presidential candidate and former
U.N. nuclear watchdog head.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The above is a remarkable report on the events in El Marinab (near Edfu) on 30 September that led to the march on 9 October from Shubra to Maspero. Which in turn ended in bloody repression leaving 24 people dead and many wounded. The report was broadcasted on Dutch public television on Saturday, November 26 and the maker is a roving Dutch reporter by the name of Lex Runderkamp, who was recently turned into a ´Special Middle East reporter´ by his bosses of Dutch NOS-tv, after having reported earlier from Libya about the events that led to the overthrow and death of Kadhafy. As is clear from the video, Runderkamp, who stayed two days in Marinab, reached the remarkable conclusions that the church in Marinab that was supposedly set on fire, was not a church, that there live almost no Copts in Marinab (only some 25, according to him), that the Copts in Marinab did not have a proper permission to renovate or expand the building, and that it was not clear who ignited the fire. Under the motto ´things are not always what they seem to be´, he in fact suggested that it had been the Copts themselves who set fire to the building. His report miraculously concurred in many ways with the things the governor of Aswan, MustafaAl-Sayed,who is responsible for Marinab, said on the question. Like Runerkamp Al-Sayed, who sided with the Muslims in the conflict, denied that the churchwasa church, he also said that there live only a handful Copts in Marinab and he said thatthe Christiansdid not have a permitforthe renovation of the building. The only thing in which El-Sayed differed with Runderkamp, was that he did not deny, that it was the Muslims who started the brawl. His refusal, however, to let the Copts continue the work on the church led to a sit-in of several days in Aswanof some1500angryCopts,which was followed by the protest in Cairo on 9 October.

Maybe Runderkamps report would not have been worth further comment, had it not en for the fact that the video of the broadcast, as can be seen above, has been picked up by Salafists- and other Egyptian media as can be seen here - to show that the whole story in Marinab was just another of those Christian conspiracies.

Runderkamp

Here in Holland Runderkamp´s report had mainly the ffect that it raised some eyebrows, as it went against all logic and all that people thought they knew. about the question. And apart from that there was some serious opposition, initially only from the blogosphere, later on also from some Christian circles. Particularly blogger Jan Dirk Snel was very detailed in his criticism, not only quoting the excellent piece that Sherry al-Gergawi wrote in Al-Ahram Online, but also - as it happened - another Dutchman living in Cairo, Cornelis Hulsman, who went with a pupil to El-Marinab one day after the events there, and who´s organisation, ArabWest, published a detailed report about what happened. Snel succeeded in getting some attention from other media, forcing Runderkamp to reply. The NOS-reporter however stuck to his version on his blog, during a radio interview, and in a second blog post, where he wrote:

Were Muslims responsible for the arson, as everyone assumes? Six judges from Cairo researched the facts in Al Marinab in October (Commission Omar Marawan). The commission concludes that it is impossible to prove that Muslim villagers set fire to the building. In the first place, according to the commission, because the the little church shows hardly traces of burning! That sounds strange, but check out my video and you´ll see that indeed only clean walls, pillars and floors are visible in the church:Second, the six judges concluded that the Copts have no corroborating evidence for their claim that Muslims have started the fire. The
commission ran into a (Muslim) witness who claimed that he had seen how a Copt set fire to a tire in the building next to the church. The Muslim was even going to help extinguish the fire.

I'm not sure from where Runderkamp got his claims about this commission Marawan. After
reading here what Human Rights Watch on October 24 wrote about the
findings of a commission that immediately after the events to Marinab
had been sent to Marinab, a commission that had been established in May after sectarian violence in Imbaba - in other words: the Commission Omar Marawan:Background to the Protest: The Burning of Mar Girgis Church in Marinab, Edfu, September 30, 2011

On September 30, a group of Muslim residents in the village of Al
Marinab, near the town of Edfu in the south of Egypt, set fire to the
Church of St. George (Mar Girgis) as it was undergoing reconstruction,
destroying the walls, domes, and columns. Those involved in the attack
believed the property was a “rest stop” and that Christians did not have
a permit to worship there and objected to the height of a steeple that
bore a cross and bell.However, a cabinet-appointed “Justice Committee,” set up in the
aftermath of the earlier sectarian violence in the Cairo district of
Imbaba in May, confirmed that local church authorities had a church
license for the property, according to the Egyptian Initiative for
Personal Rights (EIPR), which said it examined documents showing the
Copts had government permission to build the church.
The local church authorities had met with Muslim residents at the
instigation of a security official, and had agreed to lower the height
of the building and take down the cross and bell, EIPR said. Before the
alterations were complete, however, mobs attacked the church.
Mustafa El Sayed, the SCAF-appointed governor of Aswan governorate
appeared to justify the Muslim attack on the grounds that the original
building was not a church but a service center for local Christians. The
cabinet Justice Committee conducted a fact-finding mission to Edfu and
submitted its report to the cabinet on October 4, recommending the
governor’s removal, prosecution of people who destroyed the church, and
the reconstruction of the church at state expense. No action has been taken in response.

Seemsclear, doesn´t it?The commissionconcluded that the churchwasachurch, that theCoptshadalicense,that the Muslimslit the church, that theGovernorof Aswanwas wrong andshould have beenreplacedand that the culpritsshould have beenpunished.Runderkampjust lied a couple thingstogetherin orderto savehis skin.He´ddone better thought atacticalretreat or whatever.Imust say Ifinditincredible.What are these people thinking at public NOS-tv?Is thisracism?Dutchtelevisionknowsbetter thanthe primitive, little brown Egyptians? Totallack of understanding ofhowitworksin Egypt?Plain stubbornness?It´s outrageous. Anyway, Dutch tv is not going to rectify its blunder, and least of all Lex Runderkamp himself. Maybe someone in Egypt should take up the matter??

EpiloguePerhaps- as akind ofaPostscript-somecommentson how this could happen. How Runderkampcould have been misled. TheEgyptianInitiative forPersonalRights (EIPR), an Egyptianhumanrightsorganisationwhichwas already entioned above, followed sectarian clashes in Egypt during many years.In a reporton sectarian violencebetween 2008and 2010, in which it doccumented 53cases, the EIPRdescribed theway the Interior Ministryin Egypt insuch cases usually proceeds.EIPR´s description explainswhythose involved- it victims as well as perpetrators-after clashes most of the time are not really motivated anymore tobe too explicit about what exactly had happened.

Imposing quiet is the goal of the Ministry of Interior in all incidents of sectarian
violence, and this is often done against the will of the parties involved in the clashes.
In order to achieve this goal, the Interior Ministry often takes a series of routine—
and illegal—measures. Sectarian violence often ends in a reconciliation meeting
sponsored by the Interior Ministry and brought about by the use of all means of
pressure it possesses, both legitimate and illegitimate. The end objective is to restore
the situation to the status quo, as if nothing has happened.
49. The direct intervention of the Interior Ministry—which can be rapid in some cases or
take hours in others—usually involves the use of excessive violence by police forces
to disperse crowds, even when they are peacefully assembling and even if they are
assemblies organized by victims protesting assaults on them. Indeed, EIPR
researchers have documented cases in which policemen themselves are involved in
violence against Christians and attacks on their property. Such was the case in the
events in Izbat Bushra al-Sharqiya, located in the Fashn district of Beni Soueif, on 21
June 2009. A number of testimonies collected and corroborated by EIPR researchers
stated that security personnel were involved in breaking into Christian homes and
smashing their property. In Saft al-Laban, in the Boulaq al-Dakrour area of Giza, on
13 May 2009, some victims said that policemen were vandalizing the property of
Christians while arresting them inside their homes.
50. In cases of sectarian violence, the police are unable and sometimes unwilling to
intervene to protect the homes and property of Copts, particularly in attacks that
take the form of collective retribution and involve large numbers of Muslims. In
some cases this may be due to the fact that the assailants outnumber security forces,
making the latter fearful of engaging them and risking losses in their own ranks. A
clear example of the inability or unwillingness to engage is seen in the violence that
took place in Dayrout in the Assyout governorate on 24 October 2009. In that case,
the violence began at 10:30 am and security forces refrained from intervening until 3
pm, leaving Muslims free for five hours to attack five churches and numerous
pharmacies and shops. The same happened in Shouraniya, located in the Maragha
district of Sohag, from 28 to 31 March 2009, when local Muslims attacked the homes
and property of their Egyptian Baha’i neighbors. As a result of police inaction, five
-19-
Baha’i-owned homes were burned nearly to the ground. This has been repeated in
several other instances of sectarian violence.

Mar Girgis, Marinab

Sosendtroops in, forces all partiesto remain calm. Initiates reconciliation talks-evenifthe victimsdo not wantthat-andputs prssure on all sides to restorethe statusquo.Runderkampwrites inhis secondblog post'Fire inCoptic church: thefacts' the following:It'strue thatreconciliation talkswere held, because it was insufficientlyclear whowas at fault.The accusationswentback and forth.Therewasn´t any complaint deposited, not even by theCopts,the lawyerof the Musliminhabitantssaid.So, apparently, theEgyptianInterior Ministryhad been true to its habits. IfRunderkamp had had any experiencewith Egypt, he would have asked himself why on earth the storyof the Coptssoundedso unlikely and if it might have been possible that they had been were intimidated with all those Central Security troopsstillaround. But as it is, it´s all too clearc that this is something he hasn´t done.

An Egyptian military court on Wednesday reduced the sentence of blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad to two-years, much to the disappointment of his family and supporters who had hoped that he would be freed. Nabil had been sentenced on 10 April to three years for insulting the military in a blog post. Yesterday´s verdict, which was reached
after weeks of postponements and jockeying by the court, cannot be appealed.

Maikel Nabil Sanad

“Maikel Nabil Sanad should be released immediately and
unconditionally,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s
Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director. “He is a prisoner of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place,” Sahraoui said.

Nabil holds controversial views concerning Israel,
including calling for normalization – which has left him outside the
massive “No Military Trials” campaign started by a group of local
activists. He got, however the support of Samira Ibrahim,
the female activist who has filed a lawsuit against the Supreme Council
of the Armed Forces over their “virginity tests,” who came to show her
solidarity.
Maikel Nabil has been on a hunger strike since August 23. His brother Mark told Bikyamasr.comat
the court last week that his brother is facing liver and kidney problems but that he is determined to continue his hunger strike if he is sentenced to prison.

Director Susan Youssef with Mohammed bin Rashid Maktoum, the son of the ruler of Dubai.

´Habibi´, the tale of two Palestinian lovers in Gaza, on Wednesday won the top prizes at the eighth
Dubai Film Festival. The film, directed by Susan Youssef, got the first prize in the category Best Arab feature film, and the film's
star, Maisa Abdel Hadi, won the prize for the best actress, while the film also won
the best editor award.
Habibi is based on the ancient Arabic romance of Majnun Layla, andtells
the story of young Gazan lovers who are prevented from seeing each
other by family, social tradition, and politics. The idea came to
writer-director Susan Youssef while shooting Forbidden to Wander in 2002, a documentary that recounts her own romance with a theater director in Gaza. Nine years and numerous grants later, Habibi
is set to seduce audiences worldwide. Youssef, a New Yorker of Lebanese descent, lives part of the year in Amsterdam. The film is funded by the Netherlands, the US, the Palestinian Authority and the United Arab Emirates.
Youssef cried upon receiving the award, and in her acceptance speech said: "I hope we can show the film in Gaza." She said she began shooting the film in Gaza, but was forced
to relocate after Israeli authorities blocked her from travelling to
theterritory.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Syrian troops
swept into the city of Hama on Wednesday to break a three-day strike by opponents of
President Bashar al-Assad. According to activists they killed at least 10 people but faced resistance from armed insurgents who destroyed two armored vehicles.
Outside the city, army
deserters attacked a convoy of military jeeps, killing eight soldiers,
they said, adding to a death toll of at least 30 people across the
country on Wednesday.The assault
in Hama was the first armored incursion there since a tank offensive in
August crushed huge protests in the city. Activists said troops fired
machineguns and ransacked and burnt shops which had closed to mark a
mass, open-ended "Strike for Dignity" called by the opposition.Update Thursday: In the southern province of Dera´a army
deserters killed at least 27 soldiers and security force personnel in a
series of clashes on Thursday,
the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The British-based group said
the deserters fought forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in two
locations in the city of Dera´a itself, as well as a checkpoint at a
crossroads about 25 km (15 miles) to the east of the city. Rami Abdulrahman of the Observatory said in the
fighting near Musayfrah, east of Dera´a, all 15 personnel at a joint army
and security checkpoint were killed.
Al Jazeera English reported on Wednesday:: In other parts of Syria, the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC)
activist network reported that at least 10 people were killed in the
central city of Homs, three in the northeastern province of Idlib, two
in the capital Damascus, two in Deir al-Zor, two in Deraa, one in the
northeastern province of Qamishli, one in the northern city of al-Raqqa
and one in the town of Zabadany near Damascus.

An international coalition of 20 aid agencies and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, and Oxfam International, stated on Monday that Israel has stepped up unlawful demolitions in the
West Bank including East Jerusalem over the past year, displacing a
record number of Palestinian families. They also said that this sharp rise in demolitions has been accompanied by accelerated
expansion of settlements and an escalation of violence
perpetrated by settlers.
The statement of the 20 groups coincided with a meeting of Middle East Quartet in Jerusalem in its latest effort to revive peace talks. The 20 criticised the approach of the Quartet and said it should hold all
parties to the conflict to their international law obligations. The
Quartet should, therefore, press the Israeli government to immediately
reverse its settlement policies and freeze the demolitions that violate
international law.
Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam Internationa said: “The increasing rate of settlement expansion
and house demolitions is pushing Palestinians to the brink, destroying
their livelihoods and prospects for a just and durable peace. There is a
growing disconnect between the Quartet talks and the situation on the
ground. The Quartet needs to radically revise its approach and show that
it can make a real difference to the lives of Palestinians and
Israelis.”
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, added: “The Quartet should call
ongoing settlement expansion and house demolitions what they are:
violations of international humanitarian law that Israel should stop.´´
And Phillip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Interim Programme Director of Amnesty
International, called “Israel’s
escalating violations´´ an illustration of ´´the fundamental failure of the Quartet’s
approach. It’s time for the Quartet to understand that they cannot
contribute to achieving a just and durable solution to the conflict
without first ensuring respect for international law.”

The evidence of rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground, the organisations said, includes:

Doubling the number of people displaced by demolitions:
Since the beginning of the year more than 500 Palestinian homes, wells,
rainwater harvesting cisterns, and other essential structures have been
destroyed in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, displacing more
than 1,000 Palestinians, UN figures show. This is more than double the
number of people displaced over the same period in 2010, and the highest
figure since at least 2005. More than half of those displaced have been
children for whom the loss of their home is particularly devastating.

Accelerating settlement expansion:
Plans for around 4,000 new settler housing units have been approved in
East Jerusalem over the past 12 months - the highest number since at
least 2006, according to Peace Now. In November, moreover, Israel
announced plans to speed up construction of 2,000 new units in the West
Bank including East Jerusalem.

Sharp increase in settler violence: violent
attacks by settlers against Palestinians have escalated by over 50% in
2011 compared to 2010, and by over 160% compared to 2009, the UN
reports. 2011 has seen by far the most settler violence since at least
2005. Settlers have also destroyed or damaged nearly 10,000 Palestinian
olive and other trees during this year, undermining the livelihoods of
hundreds of families. The perpetrators act with virtual impunity, with
over 90% of complaints of settler violence closed by the Israeli police
without indictment in 2005-2010.

Impending threat of forced displacement of Bedouin: Up
to 2,300 Bedouin living in the Jerusalem periphery could be forcibly
and unlawfully relocated if Israeli authorities follow through with
their reported plans in 2012, which would destroy their livelihoods and
threaten their traditional way of life. Rural communities in the Jordan
Valley are also facing the prospect of further demolitions as
settlements continue to expand.

It was time that human rights organisations sounded this alarm and called on the Quartet to stop pretending it was trying to create an atmosphere in which one could talk peace, as far as I´m concerned. What, however, is missing from this statement is adhesion by Israeli and Palestinian organisations. The only thing I discovered that goes in the same direction is an observation by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) that Israel has been speeding up its demolitions and expulsions during this year 2011. One wonders why the Israelis and Palestinians aren´t there.